Fluorinated aromatics and related materials offer many advantages over non-fluorinated materials in a variety of different optoelectronic devices such as, but not limited to, organic light emitting diodes, organic field-effect transistors, organic solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells. These fluorinated materials have processing advantages and are thermally and photochemically stable. They have reduced flammability tolerance to extreme environmental conditions. Fluorinated materials also have advantages in tuning the electronic and optical properties of these devices. For example, these materials can be used to produce air stable n-type semiconductors.
Solution processability of organic semiconductor materials is key to lower the cost of large scale production of different optoelectronic devices such as organic solar cells, organic field-effect transistors, and organic light emitting diodes. It is one of the bottlenecks that limit the wide spread of application of these devices. Orthogonal processing would be ideal for organic semiconductor thin film device production. The solubility of some perfluoroalkylated aromatics is good in fluorocarbon based solvents, however, is very poor in hydrocarbon based solvents. This solubility difference in hydrocarbon and fluorocarbon based solvents provides the foundation of orthogonal solution processing for organic semiconductor devices.
Organic solar cells generally have an active layer including an electron donor molecule and an electron acceptor molecule. Fullerene based molecules (e.g. PCBM) are commonly used as electron acceptors. However, these materials are expensive, have weak solar absorption and poor solution processability. These weakness of the electron acceptor limits the widely spread application of organic solar cells. A molecule with dual functions of light harvesting and electron accepting or donating is ideal for organic solar cell application.